Haul: Estee Lauder Corporate Store Fundraising Event

Today I attended a fundraising event organised by Women’s Legal Service Queensland that was essentially “we’re selling tickets so that regular plebs can shop at discounted rates at this corporate store” but nicer and it helped raise funds for the Women’s Legal Service. They do a lot of family law and domestic violence cases, things like that.

It started at approximately 10 am and so many people were there. The range was really decent even though some of it was limited in terms of the number of shades they had. I really didn’t expect it to be so versatile, so that was a pleasant surprise.
As always at events like this, it seems the best and worst in people truly comes out. Hardly the fault of the organisers.

This photo is from a really quiet moment at the event and I just wanted to show a bit what the store looks like. You all know I’m not usually a massive fan of western makeup brands, not because I find the quality horrible or anything but because I think they tend to be really overpriced. Thus a 40% or more discount event managed to make a lot of these products more appealing.

Brands sold at the store included Bobbi Brown, MAC, Estee Lauder, Clinique, DKNY, Tom Ford, Michael Kors, and more. Although I spent a fair amount I still feel I got the things I wanted without losing control over what I bought. There were a few people who probably spent most of their paycheck and walked away with 20+ products.

I ended up buying seven items, somehow they were all from Bobbi Brown and Mac. I’ve heard a lot of good things about both of those brands in the past but beyond my favourite Guerlain lipstick and a few high end foundations I’m usually really really sceptical when it comes to spending a lot of money on something you don’t know you’ll like.

1. MAC’s Frost Lipstick in the shade Playland for 22 AUD. It’s yellow and I wanted to try something a little bit weird when I had the chance.

2. Bobbi Brown’s Retouching Powder in 2 Rose for 36 AUD. It was labeled as 10 AUD and I only now noticed that I’d been charged 36. A bit unhappy about that, but still keen to try the product.

3. Bobbi Brown’s Long-Wear Cream Shadow Stick in 24 Karat for 26 AUD. Tested this on my wrist, haven’t been able to smudge it even when I really tried. It’s also a nice golden shade that’s quite elegant and works with a lot of my nude eyeshadows.

4. MAC’s Fluidline Eyeliner Gel in Gentrified for 20 AUD. They didn’t have a tester out so I ended up buying this thinking it was a different colour, but it still looks gorgeous and I’ll give it a shot.

5. Bobbi Brown’s Shimmer Brick Eye Palette in the shade Sea Pearls for 25AUD. Another discounted item on sale, it’s really pretty, looked good when I tried the tester on my wrist, and is something I usually wouldn’t try. I actually look forward to seeing what I can do with this one.

6. MAC eye shadow in Lucky Green for 5 AUD. It was cheap and I needed a green eyeshadow.

An additional 1 dollar was added on to the product prices for the fundraising (in addition to the ticket price).
Final sum: 209 AUD.
If there hadn’t been an error with the retouching powder, the final sum would have been 183, which was more what I had in mind in terms of spending. Had a goal to keep it below 200 dollars.

A quick look online shows that these products normally retail for:

1. 36 AUD is the normal price for a MAC lipstick but I couldn’t find this shade on the website to confirm.
2. 62 AUD
3. 45 AUD
4. 32 AUD
5. Not found on Bobbi Brown’s website, but the store estimated the retail price to be 99AUD
6. Two shadows in a palette sells for 62 AUD. Price here marked as 26 for one shadow.
7. Seems to be discontinued, but estimated price according to the store is 125 AUD

Estimated Total: 425
Difference: 217 (removed the 1 dollar add on)

So yeah, by attending this event I was able to obtain these 7 items for about about 50% less than if I had bought them at retail value. It’s still a lot of money and I really hope these items are worth it. If the correct price had been entered for the powder it seems we’re looking at me having paid only 43% of what it would have cost me at retail value. But that sadly didn’t happen.
Yeah, I’m a bit grumpy about that but given the insane amount of people and the number of products sold it’s fully understandable for a staff member to make a mistake. So I’m not too upset that it happened and really don’t think it was deliberate, but I would have appreciated keeping those 26 dollars.

Overall, this was a really good event and the ‘additional’ costs for the fundraiser event will go towards a good cause.
Really happy this popped up in my FB feed.